John Gordon Ross

A Man for All Reasons

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Language Stuff

Almost everyone uses language, so inevitably almost everyone thinks they are an expert in it. I don’t consider myself an expert, though most of my work requires at least language competence and sometimes actual skill, but I do follow the blogs featured on this feeds page.

(If you are wondering where the translation-related feeds have all gone, I have put them on their own page.)

Most of the blogs represented here are in English, most of the time, but don’t be surprised to find other languages used. Go with the flow – I occasionally find myself pleasantly surprised at how much I can grasp in languages I have never seen before.

Language On the Net

languagehat.com » Marchenko and the Superfluous Man.

Saturday 6 December 19:43:43 UTC 2014

Having finished Goncharov’s first novel, Обыкновенная история (A Common Story; the “Background” section of that Wikipedia article, telling how the book was delayed for a year by Yazykov’s fecklessness, is worth reading, and the novel itself is excellent — you can see why it made Goncharov’s name), I decided to try Anastasia Marchenko’s 1847 story collection Путевые заметки (“Travel notes,” … [Link]

Omniglot blog » The Language Myth: Why Language Is Not an Instinct

Saturday 6 December 12:44:13 UTC 2014

According to an article I came across yesterday the idea that language is an instinct or that there is some kind of language organ in the brain is unlikely to be true. Vyvyan Evans, Professor of Linguistics at Bangor University, argues that, “Our brains really are ‘language-ready’ in the following limited sense: they have the right sort of working memory … [Link]

Urban Word of the Day » boyfriend money

Saturday 6 December 8:30:00 UTC 2014

When your boyfriend is a loser and doesn't have a job so you set aside a couple hundred a month to give him Haley- "What are you doing with those hundos" Claire- "It's my boyfriend money! Ya know the money I set aside so he doesn't have to live on the streets!?" [Link]

Language Log » Ethanol tampons

Saturday 6 December 7:36:33 UTC 2014

Nicki Johnson sent in the following photograph taken in the local Carrefour in Haikou, Hainan, along with this comment: "I was rather horrified until I realized they were not what they claimed to be." The Chinese on the bottle reads: jiǔjīng miánqiú 酒精棉球 ("alcohol swab; alcohol cotton ball") The Chinese word for "ethanol" would be yǐchún 乙醇. Words for "(sanitary) … [Link]

Language Log » R.I.P. Emmon Bach

Saturday 6 December 4:19:31 UTC 2014

Emmon Bach died at home in Oxford on November 28 of pneumonia-induced sudden respiratory failure. Emmon was born on June 12, 1929, in Kumamoto, Japan, the youngest of six children of Danish missionary parents Ditlev Gotthard Monrad Bach and Ellen Sigrid Bach who moved with their family from Japan to the U.S. in 1941, where he grew up in Fresno … [Link]

the world in words » A Soviet-era storytelling game trains you to bluff, lie and sometimes tell the truth

Saturday 6 December 3:45:07 UTC 2014

A tense moment during a game of “Mafia” in Kiev, Ukraine. (Photo courtesy of the English Mafia Club of Kiev) Read this post from Alina Simone. Or listen to the podcast above. The storytelling parlor game “Mafia” crosses borders, transcends culture and bridges the language divide in ways you’d never expect. There are no game boards or joysticks involved in Mafia … [Link]

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